Improper caston, can it be fixed or have to frog and start o

How-to Questions
1

This may have been answered already, if so please forgive.
I have 2 projects, a fair isle hat and the left side of a cardigan. The hat needed a provisional cast on and the cardigan needed a regular cast on. For the hat, I didnt do a provisional cast on, just a regular one. The cardigan, I used 2 size larger needles for the cast on and its way too loose, looks awful. My question is this:
Can a person go back and fix this sort of error or not? And if so what would be the process?
thanks in advance
Cindy

2

For the cardigan, one thing you could try is to go back and tighten the stitches from the end of the cast-on row one-by-one toward the starting point, and then pull the excess yarn out when you get to the beginning. (I believe I saw this method described in the Big Book of Knitting if you happen to have it – I borrowed it from the library so I don’t have it for reference anymore.) For a cardigan I expect that would mean tightening up a lot of stitches, and if you haven’t gotten that far in your knitting, it might be easier to start over.

For the hat, do you think it would look funny if you just picked up and knitted from the cast-on edge? If so, you could be very brave and put a lifeline through the second row of knitting, carefully snip off the cast on row, thread you knitting needle through the newly exposed live stitches, and then start knitting in the other direction. This has instructions on how to do the snipping. (You would just start knitting from the live stitches instead of grafting anything together, obviously.)

Before you try any of my suggestions, you might want to wait to see what others say. There may be easier solutions that are eluding my relatively-newbie, not-yet-caffeinated mind this morning.

3

I had thought of 2 things:

  1. the cardigan, I have already finished up to shoulder stitch so dont want to start over. Put a needle threaded with yarn, thru the bottom cast on edge and tighten thru there. Your suggestion of tightening sounds logical too.

  2. Or pull out stitches of ribbing on the cardigan to last stitch before color change and make them over in the other direction.

Your suggestion though for the hat is really great. I will wait and see what others say but I like this one.
thanks

4

This reminds me of something else… I saw a tip once about how you can use single crochet along a too-loose selvage edge to get a firmer base for seaming – I bet you could use crochet along the cast-on row to similarly neaten it up.

5

very good idea!!! Thanks so much for the help. I am using your suggestion for the hat right now. I used expensive yarn for both projects and I very much appreciate your help. You saved me in many ways.
God Bless

6

Glad to help. :cheering: Good luck finishing your projects!